David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I still cannot hear it. There we are. With regard to this amendment, I will, of course, support my distinguished colleague, Senator McDowell, on it. However, I wonder a little bit about it. The statement is that "no applicant for judicial appointment shall be questioned, interviewed or required in any way so as to disclose his or her political, religious or ideological beliefs or sexual orientation". Whatever about the political side, I would think it quite significant to know something about their religious background, although not which church they belong to, whether they believe in God or anything like that. I look to the case, for example, of the late Mr. Justice Rory O'Hanlon, who stated quite openly that he felt he was implementing the law of God. So much for the laws of the State. He was a very conservative judge. I wonder if it is not appropriate for the Government to find out if these are the kinds of ideas that somebody who is up for judicial appointment might have. I certainly think it should bar people from the highest court of the land if they believe they are implementing the law of God or interpreting the mind of God. These are people who are highly dangerous because of their beliefs.

I will leave ideological beliefs to one side; I am not bothered. However, I do think Senator McDowell has made the case very cogently that the Government should have the right to balance the court the way it has been balanced by the ghastly Trump in America. He has mucked things up for decades to come by appointing a series of conservative judges. Senator McDowell made very strong arguments that the Government has a right to select somebody because of his or her ideological beliefs to balance it, conservative as opposed to liberal or whatever. Finally we come to sexual orientation. Frankly, I do not give a toss what the person on the Bench does with his or her gonads. I do not care about it at all as long I do not have to witness it. We hear all this palaver about diversity and so on. How are we going to know how diverse it is and what if we want to appoint a gay judge? Personally I think it is nonsense; it does not matter a damn to me what they are. However, if we want diversity and all this stuff, then knowledge of sexual orientation is quite appropriate.I would be interested in both the Minister’s response to these two points and Senator McDowell’s response, to which I look forward with great interest.